Maja Lisa Engelhardt (1956-), Road through Landscape, 2000

Maja Lisa Engelhardt is interested in nature and in landscape as an image of mental or emotional states and moods. She works with a lyrical, colour-saturated vein of painting that takes the experience of nature as its point of departure. Processes and changeAs is the case in this painting, she often chooses situations where processes and change appear to be the dominant features – typically places within the landscape that mark a transition. It might be a clearing in the forest, or, as in this case, a road that carves its way through an otherwise impassable landscape. She also prefers weather characterised by imminent change: a drizzle that can turn into a rainstorm at any time; light breaking through a cover of clouds, the wind dragging branches and tree crowns into ever-new shapes.

A Nordic, Romantic and expressive landscape traditionEngelhardt’s depictions of landscapes continue a Nordic, Romantic and expressive landscape tradition where nature – intensely sensed – is translated into evocative painterly representations. A mainstay of this tradition is belief in nature as a force in itself and a space for meditation and self-reflection.